1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wipers having a wiper blade and an additional movable scrubber element attached thereto.
2. The Relevant Technology
Almost all motor vehicles sold today come with a standard set of windshield wipers. Conventional windshield wipers typically include a wiper blade made of rubber or the like, which is attached to a wiper support structure designed so as to cause the wiper blade to remain in contact with the windshield surface. The wiper support structure is attached to a wiper arm that attaches the windshield wiper to the motor vehicle. During use, the wiper arm causes the wiper support structure to move back and forth across the windshield. This causes the wiper blade to push the rain, snow, or other debris away from the forward field of view of the driver. This, of course, is necessary so the driver can see the road ahead while driving during inclement weather. When the windshield becomes dirty while there is no precipitation, the driver can activate a washer pump that causes washer fluid to flow through a fluid line and spray onto the windshield to help the windshield wipers remove the debris.
If the view through the windshield becomes blocked or even obscured for whatever reason, it can impact the driver's view and create a dangerous situation. This can occur, for example, when the windshield wiper stops working or when the wiper blades become worn. It can also occur when something hits the windshield that the windshield wiper is not able to remove, even when using washer fluid. The latter can occur, for example, when a car passes through a swarm of insects that splatter all over the windshield.
To aid in these situations, various after-market windshield wipers have been designed that can replace stock windshield wipers that come with the vehicle. These replacement windshield wipers include scrubbing pads designed to scrub the windshield as the windshield wiper passes back and forth over the windshield. The scrubbing pads help remove the foreign matter from the windshield, but are not always enough to remove all of the foreign matter.
To help in the scrubbing action, various windshield wipers have been designed to include a motor powered by the car battery that can rotate the scrubber. While this can improve the scrubbing action, it also has some disadvantages. For example, the rotary movement of the scrubber can cause foreign matter to be flipped up and onto another portion of the windshield. Furthermore, the rotary design of the scrubber can result in a support structure that is fairly complicated with a scrubber that is much larger than the wiper blade. In addition, the motor must have electrical wires run to it from the car. As a result, when replacing the original windshield wipers a technician or other qualified person must modify the automobile to position and run the wires to the new windshield wiper, which can be expensive and time consuming. The cost of the motor can also cause the windshield wipers to be relatively expensive, especially if the motor must be replaced every time the scrubber is replaced.
Accordingly, what is needed are windshield wipers that can provide more scrubbing action for hard to remove debris and that can easily replace or augment conventional windshield wipers without requiring much installation expertise.